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Originally Posted by soltakss

I'd limit the number of external devices to SIZ, the old hard-point (?) in Traveller.

I started on a method of giciving ship's SPACES based on SIZ. Currently it is based on the old RQ3 progression of +8 SIZ = double the size/mass, but will adapt to BRP's SIZ formula when I see it.

Originally Posted by soltakss

POW gives the recharge capacity of generators etc, but I'd allow batteries to store PPs (Power Points). Guns, Shields, Warp/Jump Engines, teleport devices, life support etc would all use PPs. This means that your tactics are determined in part by the amount of power you had available. So, perhaps, each gun would use a number of PPs, depending on its damage, basic ship functions might use a set number of points per hour, shields could run at 1/hour or Shield rating / 10 per hour, or something similar. You could even say that some types of shield use extra PPs to absorb big hits. Movement would take PPs depending on the SIZ of the ship, INterstellar travel would be similar, but depending on the mode of travel might be single jumps, costs per hour or whatever.

Nice Idea, but I was thinking of a simplier apporach to reduce bookeeping. Otherwise PP will endu p being used like RQ3 Fatigue Points, and most people don't like those.

What I was thinking of was going with the idea that ship can generate enough power to operate all it's systems, and PP are just the auxiliary batteries that get used in emergencies (such as combat).

POW would represent the generators ability to restore PPS while running the rest of the ship. Perhaps we could work up a minPOW requirement based on the number of systems, and allow for combat damage to affect ship stats. So a ship that runs below the min POW would suffer in performance.

I just don't want to track Energy Allocation to the same degree as, say, Star Fleet Battles. I'd rather not have to track PP for life support, and just put stuff like that on hit location or critical tables (both of which could be optional)

Originally Posted by soltakss

Ships would have skill bonuses, as specified, but also semi-intelligent ships would have skills of their own. So, a ship might have Blaster 50% and be able to engage in combat itself, but a Weapons Officer might have Blaster 75% and take control in combat situations.

I like this. Here are three possible ways we could do it (or possibly some sort of combination of all three):

1)We could base the rating on the number of spaces allocated to the AI Gunner, say 5% per SPACE used.

2)We could use the Ship's INT (A.I.) based IDEA % as the total amount of percentiles that can be broken up and used as skill points. So a ship that multi tasks (autopilot and gunner) wouldn't be as effective at either.

3) Spend PP to put "Beamsharp" or some such on that weapon. And yeah, we'd need a better name that beamsharp, probably call it "weapon targeting system" or some such.

You'd probably need some guidelines on SIZ to show what SIZ certain types of ships would have. Off the top of my head, and completely arbitrarily:

Escape POD: SIZ 1
1-man Fighter: SIZ 10
2-man Fighter: SIZ 15
Shuttlecraft/Runabout: SIZ 25
Small Merchantship: SIZ 40
Small Cruiser: SIZ 50
Medium Cruiser: SIZ 70
Large Cruiser: SIZ 100
Battlestar: SIZ 200
Death Star: SIZ 300

That way, you could design your ship and refer to the standard templates for comparison.

Agreed. I started working on something like this, but built on a differernt scale to keep the math and bookeeping down.

STR - Use this for propulsion, by all means, but this would probably be normal propulsion, not Warp Speed/Hyperspeed/Jump/Interstellar-Drive.

Agreed. FTL travel would be set up as an add on, with some sort of FTL Drive with it's own STR score. Exact details would vary based on type of FTL travel permitted in the campaign. THat way we could use BRP for Star Trek, Star Wars, B5 and what not without being stuck with a partiuclar method of FTL.

I know this is BRP not RQ, but there are good rules for ship design in the Mongoose books, Pirates has a couple of good ideas.

Are they very differernt than the ship rules in RQ3/Stormbinger? By all means if there is anything interesting in there mention it. You might be the only one on the BRP forum who owns Pirates!

I've been thinking of looking at Decipher's Spaceships book for Star Trek, and BTRC's Stuff! book. Both have very simple design rules.